This Decade Was Different: Relief Society’s Social Services Department, 1919-1929

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For much of its history, the Relief Society has been primarily concerned with educating and providing compassionate service to its own members, carrying out instructions passed on from priesthood leaders, keeping its own organization running smoothly — a responding organization rather than an initiating one. Neither selfish nor narrow, this characteristic pattern has still tended to look within the circle of home, neighbors, and ward rather than reaching out to the wider community or the world. But one decade was different, infused by an unusual degree of organized activism against poverty and human want within the Mormon community. More than good neighbors, the Relief Society became a powerful relief organization and an agency for social reform. From 1917 to 1929, just prior to the Great Depression, the reform impulse that had made the Mormon women an effective voice for women’s suffrage, blazed up again. Latter-day Saint women aligned themselves with the charity organization movements of the period and formed a department that directed the Church’s affairs in attacking the evils of poverty. 

For the LDS Church, it was a time of social experimentation. A new generation of Mormons comprised the general boards of auxiliaries like the Relief Society. Many of them had been educated, some with Church funds, at reputable Midwestern and Eastern universities. They were progressive-minded disciples of a Mormon-style social gospel searching to make Mormonism relevant to every segment of the Church’s group life. One scholar called them the first and last generation of the liberal Mormon intellectuals.[1]

Nationally, the activist impulse in the Relief Society during the 1920s would be considered by most historians to be out of step with the larger reform efforts. World War I had drained the energies of the national reformers and the twenties were thought of as the interlude between the Progressive Era and the New Deal. However, as social historian Clarke Chambers has demonstrated, voluntary associations like the Relief Society were finding themselves with a growing consciousness of social responsibility. For the Relief Society, World War I summoned up the social and leadership forces necessary to pro duce one of the Relief Society’s golden decades.[2]

In 1917 Utah’s governor, Simon Bamberger, asked Amy Brown Lyman, general secretary of the Relief Society General Board and veteran social welfare student, to be an official Utah delegate to the National Conference of Social Work where the Federal War Department and the American Red Cross planned to discuss the handling of the social problems of military families which resulted from the war. The Federal Government had funded the Red Cross to develop curriculum, train people in social work methods, and establish offices throughout the United States to assist troubled and displaced families.[3] Sister Lyman’s appointment to represent Utah at the NCSW was in keeping with her earlier career interests. While her husband, Richard R. Lyman, apostle, civil engineer, and university professor, was studying at the University of Chicago, Amy pursued a curriculum of social welfare studies. During a brief internship, she studied and worked at Jane Addam’s Hull House. In 1909 she joined the General Board of the Relief Society, and in 1913 she became its general secretary. In 1928 she would become first counselor to Louise Y. Robison and, in 1940, would become the Relief Society general president. 

Upon her return, Sister Lyman worked with other Red Cross delegates in developing a program and making local arrangements for the Denver regional training sessions. In November, the Relief Society General Board called Sister Lyman and three other women to attend the six-week home service course in Denver, a training seminar to teach them to “mediate between the home front and the battle front.”[4] Each woman was called from a sizable Utah city where it was anticipated her services would be greatly needed by the families of the Church’s 24,000 enlisted men. Sister Lyman was sent from Salt Lake City, Cora T. Kasius from Ogden, Annie D. Palmer from Provo, and Mary L. Hendrickson from Logan. 

That intensive six-week experience was the beginning of professional social work in Utah. All four women went on for later training and made major contributions to social work in the state.[5]

Porter Lee, head of the New York School of Philanthropy, Mary Richmond, head of the New York Charity Organization, and T. J. Reily, head of the Brooklyn Institute, were responsible for organizing and condensing its manuals, lectures, and classroom materials to provide curriculum for institutes. The three taught their students throughout the country that the principal values and methods of charity organizations were 1) rehabilitation through diagnosis and case treatment of families in need; 2) education of the public in correct principles of social welfare work and cooperation; and 3) gathering evidence through the first two principles and establishing volunteer networks to eliminate the causes of poverty and dependence. The trainees were told that this method of charity assistance was more than an indiscriminate handout, that it was based on investigation and research, and that it would rehabilitate families so they could develop and use their own resources as well as community resources to effect a permanent cure.[6] Furthermore, the trainees were taught how to discern the uniqueness of each case and how personal, family, neighborhood, civic, private charitable, and public relief sources could be shaped to the individual situation.

Upon their return, each of the four women took positions with county Red Cross agencies. In Salt Lake County, Sister Lyman became a special super visor for all cases in which the families declared themselves to be LDS. In March 1918, after several months of working with LDS families, Sister Lyman and one of her colleagues were called to President Joseph F. Smith’s office to discuss their work. Earlier, the president had reviewed samples of the records, case histories, registration sheets, and other forms and materials used in the office. He had decided, after consideration, that “if there was anything in the Church that needed improvement it was the charity work” but was deeply concerned about duplication, wasted efforts, wasted funds, and non-LDS case workers who intervened in LDS family affairs. His solution was to propose a social services department within the Relief Society organization to be headed by Sister Lyman. The discussion turned to cases, procedures, and the benefits the office would bring to the Church. Obviously, the need was great and Sister Lyman supported the proposal but felt she would need further training in Denver before she could assume such a responsibility. With President Smith’s encouragement, she returned to Denver on November 7 to work with its noted County Public Welfare Department where she could have more experience with case work and administration.[7] Relief Society President Clarissa S. Williams voiced strong support of Sister Lyman’s call and further training. Upon her return and after Heber J. Grant became president of the Church following Joseph F. Smith’s death on 19 November 1918, the Relief Society opened its Social Services Department in January 1919. That same month, the LDS Red Cross transferred its caseload to the Social Services Department. 

Between 1919 and 1929, Sister Lyman built a Social Services Department that not only reflected the three fundamental social work principles and maintained the contemporary standards of professional social work but was also loyal to the LDS faith. Clients came on their own. Sometimes bishops referred them. Case files document the struggling widow with small children, the ailing breadwinner, the homeless and jobless man, the deserted wife with children to care for, the distressed single or married woman with an unwanted pregnancy, and a variety of other cases. Typical procedure for a client was an immediate sympathetic hearing and registration with the Exchange Clearinghouse. This was a precaution employed in Salt Lake City and other U.S. cities to ensure against the duplication of efforts by social welfare agencies. If no other agency was handling the client’s case, emergency relief was given in the form needed— usually cash, food, clothing, or arrangements for medical treatment.[8] 

Then the case work began. The overriding objective of the work was to restore the individual or family to normal, self-sufficient living. An initial evaluation of the client’s social environment and personality appraised the character traits he or she could bring to bear on the situation. Then pertinent information was collected from family members, neighbors, bishops, ward members, and public authorities. After some investigation, deliberation, and case history counseling within the agency, a social diagnosis designed to re habilitate the person or family was outlined. Just as no two clients’ situations were alike, the treatment of each case, varying in scope and length of time, was individual and unique.

Thus, the Relief Society Social Services Department became the center for cooperative work in serving LDS families in distress, not only in Salt Lake County, but throughout the state of Utah and even in some other states. Even though the Social Services Department did not have a full range of resources and services, it, like charity organizations in general, coordinated services and helped clients obtain aid from appropriate institutions and agencies. For instance, the department might help a widow get her mother’s pension from the county or might arrange for the admission of a tubercular patient to a state-run sanitorium. In Salt Lake County alone the caseworkers of the department coordinated with the county charity department, county hospital, city and county courts, juvenile court, county jail, police station, state penitentiary, Charity Organization Society (now the Family Service Society), Red Cross, Volunteers of America, Salvation Army, YWCA, Traveler’s Aid Society, Legal Aid Society, and several other organizations and institutions. It also received more than fifty requests for assistance a year from troubled Church members and referring social service agencies outside Utah.[9]

To do this delicate, demanding work with LDS families, Amy Brown Lyman built a corps of workers whose credentials were second to none in the Salt Lake Valley. She was very much aware of the social work profession’s emphasis on technical competence and therefore required workers to have “a college education with a major in sociology and definite field training under supervision in an accredited family agency.” From 1919 to 1928, the staff averaged six workers (generally four professionals and two stenographers to maintain the case histories). Seventeen workers during those years met the qualifications. Numerous other Relief Society members whom Sister Lyman thought to be compatible with the work and who were strongly recommended by stake Relief Society presidents were brought in as volunteers. 

Sister Lyman frequently hired young, single women who had completed their bachelors degrees and were beginning graduate studies. She supervised their 200 hours of social work training and offered employment to those with whom she was impressed, generally for a one- to three-year period. Sister Lyman would then encourage the young women to leave the area and to pursue advanced degrees and training under the guidance of her friends and colleagues at the New York School of Social Work and at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Services Administration. 

This pattern was a policy. Sister Lyman considered the Relief Society Social Services Department to be one of the finest in Utah. Sharing her qualified professionals boosted their individual career development at the same time that it helped other agencies and kept the Relief Society’s reputation high. In her opinion, this was the best way to spread the practice of good social case work and expert agency management. In a community which still frequently relied on untrained personnel, the Relief Society Social Services Department was a valuable pool of trained workers and could take partial credit for the fine reputation of such people as Genevieve Thorton who worked three years for the Relief Society, earned her masters degree at the University of Chicago, and later headed a major New York welfare agency. Cora T. Kasius, who also worked with the office periodically from 1919 to 1926, later went to the New York Charity Organization where she eventually became editor of the Family Casework Journal. Anna Laura Stohl Cannon after two years of experience, moved to the Washington, D.C., area. Sister Lyman contacted Grace Abbott, head of the U.S. Children’s Bureau, alerted her to Sister Cannon’s arrival and qualifications, and was gratified when Sister Cannon worked with the Children’s Bureau during the White House Conference of 1931 and the formation of the Social Security Act of 1935.[10]

The Social Work Department, in addition to working with clients and other agencies, also launched a massive education effort aimed at Relief Society members. Its goals were three-fold: to recruit volunteers to assist the professional case workers, to spread information about case work methods throughout the Church, and to fulfill its obligation as a private charity organization by educating the community in correct charity methods. 

In 1920, the Relief Society General Board and the Church’s Social Advisory Committee, sponsored an intensive six-week course at Brigham Young University for Relief Society workers from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, Canada, and Mexico.[11] Sixty-five out of the Church’s eighty-three stakes were represented. The women received instructions on discerning individual needs, carrying out social investigations, and effectively organizing community resources to help rehabilitate families. During the next eight years, the general board with some early cooperation from the Social Advisory Committee held 126 institutions at key locations so that area Relief Society leaders could attend. These courses were shorter but no less intensive — full time for an average of two weeks, though some were as short as two days and others were as long as twelve weeks. By 1928, 2,901 women had completed training at these institutes, been designated social services aides, and been assigned to assist their ward and stake Relief Society presidents with scientific social work.[12]

Even in outlying areas, charity and relief practices were revamped. In a 1922 circular letter the First Presidency instructed the bishops to contact the Relief Society president if a family was in need. She then would assign the case to an aide who would investigate, advise the president on the best method of handling necessary commodities, and make a recommendation for long-term therapy. The president would then report the work to the bishop; he was encouraged by the First Presidency and the Presiding Bishopric to consider their advice and to take it whenever possible. 

The Relief Society General Board also used other resources to educate its members in social welfare concerns. The Relief Socity Magazine published such articles as: “Tuberculosis: A Social Disease,” and “Child Welfare in President Hoover’s Administration,” as well as reports on such professional meetings as the National Conference of Social Work to which the Relief So ciety faithfully sent a delegation of General Board members and case workers each year. General Relief Society Conference sessions emphasized the work through addresses on rehabilitating families, dealing with transients, employment counseling for girls and women, placing children in foster homes, and reducing juvenile delinquency. Finally, starting in 1919, one of every four Relief Society monthly lessons concentrated on social services. In 1919-1921, “health and sanitation” was the general topic; in 1924-1925, “the field of social welfare”; in 1926-1927, “child welfare”; and in 1929-1930, “the field of social work.” The texts used in the courses during the decade were Principles of Relief by Dr. Edward T. Devine, Social Diagnosis by Mary Richmond, and The Art of Helping People Out of Trouble by Karl De Schweinitz. All these individuals were nonmembers, professionals, and personal friends and mentors of Amy Brown Lyman.[13]

The third area of concentrated labor that distinguished the Social Services Department during this period was the genuine effort to eliminate the causes of poverty and dependence. In a toast made at a Relief Society banquet in 1922, Amy Brown Lyman said the Relief Society “should work for the abolishment of poverty, [and to right] all its humiliations.” Several areas of concern were high maternity mortality rates, juvenile delinquency, and chronic sickness and crime in the community. She saw a critical need for social insurance, child labor laws, federal health intervention, and provisions for dependent children and the feeble-minded. Sister Lyman reminded the audience, “Every form of social work is a criticism of one or more of the great fundamental institutions of society — the family, the school, industry, the government. It is not ideal that there should be forever groups of the population so handicapped by one thing or another that they are not able to bear a normal part in the community or to live their own lives without special assistance.”[14]

Doing case work day after day and seeing chronic poverty in a society where many prospered convinced Sister Lyman that the Relief Society had to augment its case work band-aid remedies with a program of prevention. Her own caseload was proof that personal laziness or unworthiness were seldom the root of the problem. Poor housing, inaccessible medical care, lack of facilities for the mentally retarded, and harsh treatment for first-time juvenile offenders were just a few societal wrongs that frequently exacerbated a family’s prob lems. Over and over, she and her colleagues witnessed how poor food led to poor physical and mental health, which led to a child’s inability to learn and a parent’s inability to earn, which again meant poor food. Poor begat poor, and retarded begat retarded. 

Sister Lyman, the Social Services Department, and the Relief Society knew that more had to be done. Specializing efforts within the department offered the first solution to frequently recurring problems. Hence, in 1922, Sister Lyman oversaw the creation of the Employment Bureau to help women find stenographic, factory, and domestic employment. In the same year, the Social Services Department was designated as the Church’s agency for child placement and adoption. On 7 September 1927 the State Public Welfare Com mission issued a license to the General Board of the Relief Society, the Social Services Department’s legal governing body, authorizing the department to receive and place children in foster homes and for adoption. In 1924 the Social Services Department established a program to temporarily place older, mal nourished children in the rural homes of Church members for two weeks or longer where they could receive fresh air, good food, and healthy recreation.[15]

Beyond that lay the whole field of social legislation. On national issues, the Relief Society aligned itself with associations which could lobby Congress men for social justice and which supported child labor laws, workmen’s compensation, social insurance, industrial safety, protective legislation for women and children, and direct services for retarded citizens. On a state level, the Relief Society General Board charged itself to be well informed about social legislation. Biannual reports were made in the Relief Society general conferences about legislative action in Utah and surrounding intermountain states. On several occasions, members of the general board were instrumental in securing key pieces of legislation, both as elected representatives in the state legislature or by mobilizing Relief Societies on the ward and stake levels into open political activity. On matters such as mothers’ pensions, vocational training, establishing a home for reformed prostitutes, continuance of the State Welfare Commission, licensing of qualified child-placing agencies, and inspection of maternity homes, the general board made the Relief Society’s position clear to legislators and usually the bills passed with little more effort than the initial contact.[16]

However, a few key issues brought intense political activity from the Relief Society and its members. Two notable examples of this were the efforts to establish the American Fork Training School for the mentally retarded and the U.S. Infancy and Maternity Health Act. In 1929 the Relief Society actively lobbied for a $300,000 appropriation for the American Fork Training School. The general board instructed local unit leaders to “personally interview their legislators.” During a 1929 legislative session, the Relief Society presented petitions containing several thousand signatures supporting the appropriation. Furthermore, the general board rented buses and invited stake Relief Society presidents in the area to tour the site selected for the school — with pencil and paper to take notes on the lectures they would receive en route. That bill ultimately passed.[17]

One of the most imaginative and successful programs ever attempted by the Social Services Department and by the Relief Society General Board was in support of the Infancy and Maternity Act of 1921 designed to lower mor bidity and mortality rates of mothers and children in the United States. That bill, named the Sheppard-Towner Act for its sponsors in Congress, was the first social reform measure to involve federal grants-in-aid to states. The Relief Society supplied political and financial support, cooperated with federal and state officials, and made its Utah wards available to State Health Department information and lobbying efforts. Amy Brown Lyman was serving as a mem ber of the Utah House of Representatives in 1922 and sponsored the bill allowing Utah to receive the full amount of funds possible for the work. 

During the legislation’s seven-year span, local Relief Societies enthusiastically devised, promoted, and mobilized health care delivery for thousands of women and children. The reporting years of 1925 through 1929 show that in Utah alone 52,925 infants and children were examined at some 2,203 health conferences; 133 health care centers were established; 274 dental conferences were sponsored where 5,491 children were checked; and 3,766 women attended “mothers classes” where they were instructed in prenatal health, nutrition, and child care. Over four thousand untrained volunteers — mostly Relief Society members — helped public health officials give physical examinations and made the local arrangements for conferences.[18]

Such efforts reduced Utah’s maternity mortality rate more than any other state in the Union. In fact, Utah’s successes attracted Grace Abbott, a famous social worker, educator, and chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau, and the noted activist, writer, and University of Chicago professor, Sophonisba Breckinridge. These noted reformers and social work leaders met with the Utah State Board of Health, with the Relief Society general presidency (Clarissa S. Williams, Jennie B. Knight, and Louise Y. Robison), and with Sister Lyman as director of its Social Services Department to congratulate them on their work.[19]

The history of the Relief Society Social Services Department during the decade of 1919—1929 shows its development to be essentially parallel to that of other religious and public voluntary associations in the United States during that time. Historian Clarke Chambers has called the period “the seedtime of reform,” alluding to the social programs that would come as a result of the New Deal. However, for the Social Services Department, such a crop would not reach fruition. The climate within the Mormon Church, once tolerant of humanistic liberalism, turned cold, and with the chill, the Social Services Department withered and, in time, became barely recognizable. 

The three tenets of professional social work employed by charity organizations, including the Relief Society (rehabilitation through social diagnosis, education of the community, and specific efforts to eliminate the causes of poverty) continued until the Great Depression. However, as caseloads swelled from 45 per social worker in 1928 to 700 per social worker by 1933, the priorities and goals of the Social Services Department shifted. As the Depression deepened and unemployment among LDS families rose sharply, more and more people declared themselves to be dependent. Such demand for aid and commodities convinced the General Authorities that another avenue had to be taken. 

With the transition to the Welfare Plan in 1936, the Church’s earlier approach, which maintained that a society’s ills are the reflection and the responsibility of that society and that the unfortunate and oppressed have a right to receive help and assistance in a variety of forms, changed to a more conservative, Hoovarian philosophy which emphasized individual responsibility and “by your own bootstrap progress.” Moreover, thinking they had effectively met the needs of the Mormon community, the Church hierarchy then cut and pared the once flourishing Social Services Department. For the next forty five years, its jurisdiction was limited to adoption and foster care placements, and the counseling of unwed mothers. Occasionally, the women visited the juvenile courts and dealt with youth problems, but family counseling and particularly marriage counseling were forbidden by Church policy until 1966 with bishops being the only ones authorized to deal with such matters. Chronic physical and mental problems came under the purview of the Medical Welfare Department of the Presiding Bishopric’s Office, and the Church Welfare Planitself replaced the Relief Society’s Emergency Relief Fund in distributing needed food and clothing. 

Although there is a marked difference in the approaches of the Social Services Department and the Welfare Plan, the humanitarian efforts and goals of the department deserves not to be forgotten. The emphasis on assisting church members for whatever reason and on organizing both professional and nonprofessional people, who had as their primary goal to minister to the poor and ailing and to give hope to the unfortunate, should be appreciated. Not only was it a noble decade in Mormon history, but it also applies to the con temporary church and its responsibility to the impoverished masses throughout the world. 

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[1] Sterling M. McMurrin, “Introduction” in Ephraim Edward Erickson, Mormon Social Group Life (1922; repnt ed., Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1975), p. x. 

[2] Clarke A. Chambers, Seedtime of Reform-: American Social Services: American Social Service and Social Action, 1918-1933 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), pp. ix-xiv. 

[3] Amy Brown Lyman, “Social Service Work in the Relief Society, 1917—1928,” Sep- tember 1928, p. 3; Archives, Historical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; hereafter cited as LDS Church Archives, James Leiby, A History of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 160-61, 182-83; Walter I. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America (New York: The Free Press, 1974), p. 218. 

[4] Phyllis Watts, “Casework Above the Poverty Line: The Influence of Home Service in World War I on Social Work,” Social Service Review 38 (Sept. 1964) : 303-15. 

[5] Heber R. Taylor, “How Social Work Came to Utah,” n.d., Social Work Library, Uni versity of Utah. 

[6] Frank D. Watson, The Charity Organization Movement in the United States (New York: Macmillan Co., 1922), p. 117; Mary E. Richmond, Social Diagnosis (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1917); Edward T. Devine, The Principles of Relief (New York: Macmillan Co., 1904).

[7] Lyman, “Social Service Work,” p. 4; Amy Brown Lyman, In Retrospect (Salt Lake City: General Board of the Relief Society, 1945), p. 64. 

[8] The best available source for reviewing individual cases without jeopardizing client confidentiality is the Relief Society Magazine, 1919—1929; also see “Statement of Emergency Relief Fund” by the General Board of the Relief Society, 1921-1931, LDS Church Archives; Relief Society General Board, Minutes, 6 Nov. 1918 and 13 Mar. 1919, LDS Church Archives. 

[9] To see the degree to which Relief Society women embraced the profession see the conference addresses by Annie D. Palmer, Cora T. Kasius, Beth Bradford, and Amy Brown Lyman in Relief Society General Conference, 4 June 1919, as reported in the Relief Society Magazine 6 (Aug. 1919): 446-53. 

[10] Lyman, “Social Service Work,” p. 25-27; Lydia Alder Bean, Oral History, Helen Migley Ross, Oral History, Anna Laura Stohl Cannon, Oral History, Leona Fetzer Wintch, Oral History, interviewed by Loretta L. Hefner, 1979, transcripts, the James Moyle Oral His- tory Program, LDS Church Archives.

[11] The Social Advisory Committee was a type of church correlation committee organized in 1916 to deal with contemporary social and moral conditions. It was largely headed by Stephen L. Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve and Amy Brown Lyman, assisted by a host of Mormon social gospel advocates. The scope and activities of the committee confirm my general thesis that the 1920s were a unique decade in the Mormon Church’s attempt to grapple with social issues. The committee was disbanded in 1922. For an insightful discus sion of the committee, see Thomas G. Alexander, “The LDS Church and the Social Gospel: The Advisory Committee as a Case Study,” paper given at Mormon History Association, annual meeting, Lamoni, Iowa, 26 May 1979. 

[12] Amy Brown Lyman, “Qualifications of Social Services Aides,” Relief Society General Conference, 1 Oct. 1930, in the Relief Society Magazine 17 (June 1930) : 668. 

[13] Relief Society General Board, Minutes, 10 Dec. 1919; 28 July 1921; 29 Sept. 1921; 4 Oct. 1921; 4 April 1922; 3 Oct. 1925; LDS Church Archives. 

[14] Amy Brown Lyman, “Vision of the Future in Relief Society: A Toast at the Relief Society Banquet,” 1922, Amy Brown Lyman Papers, Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; for general biographical overview of Sister Lyman’s involvement in other humanitarian efforts, see Loretta L. Hefner, “Amy Brown Lyman: Raising the Quality of Life For All,” Sister Saints, ed. Vicki Burgess-Olsen (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1978), pp. 95-118. 

[15] Lyman, “Social Service Work,” p. 18; Relief Society General Board, Minutes, 15 Sept. 1924; 24 March 1926; 2 April 1926; 2 Oct. 1926; 17 Aug. 1927; Clarissa S. Williams, “Summer Vacations for Children,” Relief Society General Conference, April 2-3, 1925, Relief Society Magazine 12 (June 1925): 309-10; Lydia Alder, “Summer Vacations for Children,” Relief Society Magazine 13 (Feb. 1926): 79-81.

[16] Annie D. Palmer, “Social Legislation,” Relief Society General Conference, 4 June 1919, Relief Society Magazine 6 (Aug. 1919) : 446-48; Amy Brown Lyman “Social Legislation of Utah,” Relief Society General Conference, 4 April 1923, Relief Society Magazine 10 (June 1923) : 272-75; Bessie G. Hale, “Social Legislation of Idaho,” Relief Society General Conference, 4 April 1923, Relief Society Magazine 10 (June 1923) : 275-76. 

[17] Amy Brown Lyman, “Utah Provides for the Care of the Feeble-Minded,” Relief Society Magazine 16 (May 1929): 253-54; Dr. D. A. Skeen (chairman of the commission to select a site for the school for the feeble-minded), untitled address, Relief Society General Conference, Relief Society Magazine 17 (June 1930) : 306-7; Evelyn Mulder, Oral History, interviewed by Loretta L. Hefner, 1975, tape only;, in possession of author.

[18] The Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy, U.S. Children’s Bureau Publication no. 203 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1929), p. 138. 

[19] Loretta L. Hefner, “The National Women’s Relief Society and the U.S. Sheppard- Towner Act,” Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (1982) : 255.